Posted on 12/10/2004 6:13:45 PM PST by kiki04
Been there, done that, took a long time to learn not to look or sound smart, no matter how much I had to bite my tongue.
The grades did not reflect my intelligence, as I found life MUCH easier as a B student, with friends, than an A student with "social problems" and too many "accidents" in the locker room.
Once I hit college, in the days when not everybody, but mostly only those who really wanted to and could meet requiremnents attended, things were suddenly very different.
It took a while to learn how to really study, but at least having a brain wasn't a handicap anymore.
What does that mean to you? The teachers here don't know what questions will be asked. They have to teach reading comprehension and basic algebra and math skills.
What's wrong with teachers doing that? Isn't that what they should be doing?
Actually, what has been taught is what should be tested. Isn't that the purpose of testing?
Well, yes - but aren't they teaching self esteem? How is that tested?
Reading comprehension and basic math skills sound like better testing areas.
BTW, she never complained about being "bored."
Yours is post # 22. So far, 50 % or so have been anti-special education which leads me to believe we are in a sorry state, with many people still clinging to misconceptions about people with mental and cognitive disabilities and their abilities to achieve.
Maybe school administrators, Boards, and teachers themselves need to face their fears about special needs kids. Then go back to school themselves (God forbid!) to learn instructional techniques for dealing with special students. Seems to me these days, that C students are preferred, but kids who excel, kids who seek advanced placement, or kids who have special needs are targeted for alternative educational settings in order that teachers may have less disruption in their lives. "Give us AVERAGE, or give us death.".....Isn't that the general motto of 'educators' these days?
And before I rant, I won't go down the path regarding the number of 'outside environmental days' or the number of field trips totally unrelated to education which one witnesses these days. In fact, I heard it today at the lunch counter once again. "Yes, this is my grand-daughter. Yes she is in my care today. I forget the reason, but the school is out once again today. It happens all the time." (These are her actual quotes).
If the Special ED Student can participate in regular class without bringing everybody else down, then let them in. Common sense has to prevail though. Some Special ED students do need to be in special classes. Grouping everybody in one standardized/one-size-fits-all class is a disaster in every school district. I posted about when my school district discontinued Intermediate Classes. This left a big chunk of students that did not fit in either Honors or Regular classes and ended up out in the cold and left behind.
For the longest time it has been common knowledge that you can place an apple in a bag of potatoes and the apple will gas off thereby keeping the potatoes from maturing and blossoming while the apple slowly decomposes; concurrently it is also well known that placing an apple in a breadbox prolongs the freshness of the bread and delays its crusting and molding; less than well known is that placing an apple in a brown paper sack with green tomatoes will speed their ripening and placing an apple in a brown paper bag with green bananas will work almost overnight to turn them yellow; but what seems to be altogether forgotten is that placing even a bruised and slightly decomposing apple in a barrel of otherwise perfectly healthy and ripe apples will spoil the whole barrel.
If only we had more oranges.
And how does that make you feel...?
You're correct about avoiding generalizations which many of us conservatives are as gulity of as the democrats.
My wife has taught ED kids for 20 years; and still says she luved everyday of it. Has had many successes that changed kids lives (who were on the road to institutionalization and now are productive citizens).
How you structure your program and how reg ed teachers conform to the diverse learning styles makes all the difference. Not in the old school anymore; kids come to school with enough baggage these days. Many reg teachers just don't want bothered with the extra responsibility of changing their perfect classroom.
Inclusion has been around a long time; public law 94-142. Nothing wrong with spec needs students in classroom; teachers make the difference. Spend a day in the classroom of a teacher that has been at it 25 years then compare that with substitutes; and then go figure.
Ya know what impresses me though. Nowadays, the kids don't ridicule other kids that are different, special needs. It's almost like we have made some progress along the line all these years.
Everyone who questions the need for special ed; what do they suggest for answers? Do we ignore the problem, throw them out into the streets, or do we attempt to find a strength that most everyone has and build on that for their future. 60 years ago, some of the smartest people on this earth built death camps for those who were different.
My son "adapted" to this school. He started learning to speak Spanish on the playground. Academically, he was the top fly on the manure pile. In time, his academic performance was getting him a daily beating on the playground. When a local gangbanger showed up near the school and discharged a 12 gauge shotgun, we made a mutual decision to extract him from the "program". He returned to the local elementary school near our home. It took him 2 weeks to catch up with the other students in his classroom.
The only "good" consequence of the experience is that he kept working on speaking Spanish. Today, he has a California real estate sales license and his fluency in Spanish has given him entre to a predominantly Spanish speaking customer base.
As mentioned in a prior post, he ended up teaching his AP classes in high school and running evening tutorials for his classmates. Boredom is a personal choice. It is better to make your own destiny than hope someone will lead you to success.
I was surprised that he did start KG. He goes to Wesley Wonder kids 3 nights a week in addition to KG. He reads at a first grade level and is above the norm in math, and generally likes school. He is labeled mild to moderate.
Yup, and not just to protect your "little darling". Many folks with special ed students opt to do the same thing, especially with autistics who seem to thrive in a more one on one setting.
Bless your wife. Public school teachers make a huge contribution, despite some prevailing thought floating around. They have to deal with every child flung at them; bright, not-so-bright, stable and crazy, brats and angels, not to mention parents in the same four categories.
the classes with the disruptive kids ide like to see them get hit across the jaw several times. i cant do anything in class with out them shouting or something.
bump from special ed worker
My reference to "boredom" was directed to the parents of chldren who can't behave because "s/he's bored." I always want to say, "How can he be so bored and so dumb at the same time?" LOL!
I tried to work around this problem in my classroom by issuing all the assignments on the first day. There were 18 basic assignments and 5 extra credit. Completing all 18 was the minimum requirement for a C in the class. Complete 3 "extra credit" items and you have a B. Complete everything for an A. I permitted people to work as fast as they were capable in completing the work. The class was paced to ensure everyone received the necessary instruction to achieve all 18 basic assignments.
I routinely had 2 of 35 students who completed all assignments by the 10th week. Those students were afforded opportunities to learn new techniques such as speech synthesis, real time interrupt handling and primitive networking. The other students in the class looked up to them and sought some in class tutoring.
Every assignment required not only detailed coding on paper, but also a demonstration that the code ran correctly on the microcontroller trainer. As such, every student interacted directly with me on every successfully completed assignment. Each one was free to ask questions along the way.
I taught this class from September 1980 until June 1983. Every Tuesday and Thursday night from 6:30 PM until 10 PM. The reason I stopped teaching the class was a change in my employment and my residence. Making time to teach with a fixed daily schedule in engineering was easy. The new job was software development with 24 X 7 on call support of a UNISYS mainframe. I lost control of my time and could not guarantee that an emergency at work would not prevent me from teaching the class. I also moved 30 miles north of the college facility. That would have added an extra 40 miles round trip each time. The traffic path from the new house to the college was a totally parking lot.
"Boredom" can be the invention of parents to excuse poor behavior on the part of their offspring. You apparently have never taught in a primary school.
Bad company ruins good manners.
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